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THE VICE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, NALEO! Good afternoon. (Applause.) Have a seat. Have a seat. Good afternoon.Oh, its so good to look at this wonderful, big crowd. Its so good to be back together under the same roof, isnt it? Yeah, its good to see everyone.And I hope we all walk away from days like this and moments like this when we go back to the places where we work every day, often being one of the only like us in a room or who has had the life experience weve had I think these are moments that are very important to remember that we are not alone. There are all of us who are in these rooms together, even if we dont see each other at a particular moment. So, its a good time to be together. So, thank you all. (Applause.)And I want to thank Ricardo and Mara for that kind introduction and for your leadership of this organization during an unprecedented time during these years of the pandemic and so many crises that we have been facing as a country.And, of course, I am honored to be here with the board of directors of NALEO and so many of our nations leaders.Before I start speaking as I planned to speak, I do want to speak briefly about the decision from todays United States Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs case.Here is what I believe that decision means: For nearly 50 years, we have talked about what Roe v. Wade protects. Today, as of right now, as of this very minute, we can only talk about what Roe v. Wade protected. Past tense.The great aspiration of our nation has been to expand freedom. It is something so many of us has spent our careers fighting for. But the expansion of freedom clearly is not inevitable, and it certainly is not something that just happens not unless we defend our most fundamental principles.The strength of our nation has always been that, despite the odds and the obstacles, we push to move forward; that we are guided by what we see that can be, unburdened by what has been. And I know everyone in this room understands this and has, in many ways, lived a life that illustrates this.And so, because, of course, NALEO has been fighting to move our nation forward for nearly 50 years on other critical issues and the issues that fundamentally are about the ideals and aspirations of our nation, I am honored to be with you here today.And I also want you to know that I bring you greetings from President Joe Biden because we are grateful, yes. (Applause.) We are grateful for the work of this organization and its members to galvanize policy members and leaders, to mobilize, to organize, and to do that work on behalf of the Latino community and, by extension, the entire nation all of that work being in pursuit of progress and our collective ability for our nation to achieve its ideals. So, I thank you all.I have always felt a special connection to this organization, as Ricardo said. And, yes, as a proud daughter of California (laughs) (applause) many of us the daughters and sons of California I am proud that NALEO, of course, was founded by a great Californian, Edward Roybal. And we must always remember him. (Applause.)And throughout my career, I have worked alongside many of the leaders of this organization, including, of course, our collective friend and my dear friend, now-Senator Alex Padilla, who served (applause) yes, he and I served together many years. I was mostly based in the Bay Area. He was in Los Angeles. But then, as we were coming up, we both ended up as state constitutional officers when he was Secretary of State and I was Attorney General of California.And I partnered with so many of NALEO members on so many issues that range from supporting small businesses, to immigration reform, to voting rights, education, and so many more issues.And over the years, as Ricardo said, I have spoken with this organization many times. But I am honored that this is the first time that I, in person, am speaking with you as Vice President of the United States. (Applause.)So, I believe in fact, I know there is a common characteristic among us all: We all serve because we believe in the magnificence of our nation and its potential. We all believe in fighting to achieve our nations highest ideals, knowing, as I said earlier, they dont just happen. We dont just achieve them by being, we achieve them by being committed to reaching those ideals.We all believe in a future where the promise of liberty and justice is made real for all Americans. We believe in a future where hard work pays off, where families can get ahead and stay ahead. We believe in a future where every child can reach their God-given potential.We believe that all communities have a right to be safe and healthy.And we believe that anyone should be able to have a dream and achieve that dream a future where immigrants have the opportunity to have what they deserve in terms of a pathway towards citizenship.We believe in a nation and in a future where protecting the freedom to vote is not a partisan issue.We believe that women should be able to make decisions about their own bodies without government interference. (Applause.)And so, you know, when the President and I took office, our country, as we all remember, was headed in the wrong direction. Just think: We were facing a pandemic that was out of control. We had a situation that, in that pandemic, its important to note, it was particularly devastating in terms of its impact on the Latino community, especially among those who were frontline workers and essential workers and farmworkers, so many of whom were, in terms of the essential workers, DREAMers. We remember how folks risked their own health and the health of their families to keep safe communities and to keep our country running.Remember, our nation also faced and we can talk about current day as well but then, in particular, we faced a historic economic challenge as a result of the pandemic.But together with you, the President and I were not deterred. With your partnership remember it was a difficult road but we got folks vaccinated. We reopened our schools and kept people in their homes.Together, because of our collective work, we achieved record job creation, record labor participation, and the largest single-year drop in Latino unemployment in recorded history. (Applause.)In addition, we have assembled the most diverse administration in the history of our country. And I should note, we have appointed the most Latino leaders ever to Cabinet-level position. (Applause.)In addition, we expanded the Child Tax Credit, such that so many children and in particular, the Latino child poverty rate hit a new record low last year.Because of the once-in-a-generation Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we lowered the cost of high-speed Internet for nearly 40 percent of households in America.Because we invested in small businesses, business owners across the country kept their doors open and Latino entrepreneurs started new companies at a higher rate last year than at any other point in the last decade.In fact, just recently I was in Monrovia, California many of the Californians know where that is. (Applause.) California. (Laughter.) Just joking. I got jokes, okay. (Laughter.)So, I was there in Monrovia, and I was visiting this incredible small business its a woman small-business owner, and it was the business is called Dream Big Childrens Center. And its owner, her name is Cristina Cordeiro. We talked for quite some time. Her mother was there. And we talked about her inspiration, which is her mother was a great caregiver. Right? She grew in a community where we care about the children.And so, she created this business that parents would rely on to provide daily therapy to children with special needs. And if you can imagine, this especially during the pandemic, for all of us who have children in our lives it was incredibly critical, especially during those many, many months of the pandemic, that we would have access to the needs of services for our children. So, it was very critical that she stayed open during the pandemic.Fortunately, because of funding she received through our administrations American Rescue Plan, she was not only able to continue providing services in her community, but she was able to grow her business. And since the start of the pandemic, she has opened 50 or two new locations with 50 new employees.And I mention that because, during the course of the last couple of years and in particular in the last year and half after we passed, together with your help, the ARP Ive met so many small-business owners who have seen success and the kind of success that I know NALEO and this organization and its members have been fighting for, understanding that so much of the economic health and vitality of our communities has been centered in the small businesses, in men and women who are invested in their community; who understand the community the language of the community, the culture of the community, the needs of the community and are, therefore, best suited to actually uplift the community economically and in every other way.And together, because of the work that we have done, in particular with the ARP, weve been able to do that and were seeing results.And so, whether it is my work in the United States Senate or the work that we did, in terms of in the Senate, helping small businesses access capital, or the partnership, together, that we had to get the Restaurant Revitalization Fund included in the ARP, we are seeing that small businesses are starting to thrive in our country, and with a particular emphasis on women- and minority-owned small businesses.So, I want to thank you all for the work youve done in that regard as well. (Applause.)So with that being said, we also know that people are still hurting. There is no question that we still face a number of serious challenges. And today then, Id like to talk about three of the issues which I believe are among the priorities of us in this room: one, lowering costs for families, building a fair and humane immigration system, and protecting people from gun violence. So, first, I think we all agree and know inflation is still too high. We are seeing higher prices at the store because supply chains slowed down dramatically during the pandemic and higher prices at the gas pump, in large part because of Putins unprovoked war in Ukraine. And families across our nation, in particular working families, are feeling the effect.I know you know the President and I are using every tool at our disposal to lower costs, including the cost of gas, childcare, eldercare, and prescription drugs like insulin which we should be capping, by the way, at $35 a month. (Applause.)And as leaders of the communities that you represent, you know that these are some of the costs that most matter to the families of our communities. And we know that making essential needs more affordable will keep our country on a path to stable and steady growth.So, there is work that we still have to do. But as we are looking at these issues, as we discuss the issue of inflation, let us agree that we cannot abandon our commitment to supporting families on the issue of childcare, on the issue of eldercare, on the issue of the cost of prescription drugs. Because these are costs that are, without any question, also weighing down the ability of families to succeed and thrive. And in large part, a lot of these issues are incumbent on elected leaders to solve, and they have the ability to solve.Speaking of, lets talk about the second issue: immigration. Theres still so much work to be done on that. We have partnered, so many of us, over the years to fight to fix our countrys broken immigration system and, in particular, to fight for our Dreamers.When I was Attorney General of California, you probably remember that we, together, fought in the courts and spoke out when they ruled against DACA and DAPA. When I was in the United States Senate, we worked together on legislation that would create a pathway to citizenship.And today, our administration continues to urge Congress to create a pathway not only for DREAMers, but also for individuals with temporary protected status and for farmworkers. In fact, when I was in the Senate, I was proud to sponsor the Farm Worker Bill of Rights. We (applause) thank you.And so we issued a proposed rule that would preserve and fortify DACA. Our administration and the Department of Justice continues to defend DACA in the courts. In fact, just last week, on the 10th anniversary of DACA, I was again reminded of why we have to continue the fight. I invited a group of DREAMers to come in and and they came into the White House, to my West Wing office, and each of them was so committed to paying forward the opportunity that they received and the opportunity that they know that folks who are entitled to receive. One of the DREAMers became a kindergarten teacher after college. And today he is organizing a diverse coalition in support of a pathway towards citizenship.And I dont need to tell anybody here: DREAMers are serving in our military, they are attending college, they are working in Fortune 100 companies. I mentioned the number who were frontline workers who were sacrificing so much of their own lives and service to their community and perfect strangers.And it is a tragedy that we cant pull this together as a nation and pass legislation, creating a legal pathway for them, for farmworkers, for TPS, and understanding what this means to families every day.We you know, its not on the front page of the newspaper, necessarily, but its real; I dont have to tell anybody here.These kids, their parents, so many blended families, mixed families, still every day are in fear about a knock at a door and what that might mean, whether a parent might come home at night.And I dont need to tell anybody here this, because most of us are in the same situation: We are a nation of immigrants. Raise your hand if you have a parent that was not born in the United States this room of leaders. (Applause.)So, as do we, these young people represent the promise of who we are as a country. You know, I said to one of them I said to one of the young leaders that were there that day, and I said, You know, my mother came to the United States and were in my West Wing office in the White House, and I looked at I looked at him and I said, You know, my mother came to the United States from India when she was 19 years old. And Im Vice President of the United States. (Applause.) And he broke out in a big smile. He said, Okay, I got it. I understand.So, all of that to say that we have to keep fighting on this issue.The third issue that I know is our nations highest priority one of them is our responsibility to create safe communities and protect people from gun violence.What happened in Uvalde broke the hearts of our entire country. We were all shaken to our core by the massacre of those 19 children those babies and their two teachers. And we, of course, still remember and mourn the 23 lives senselessly taken by a white nationalist in El Paso three years ago.And our hearts are heavy when news breaks about similar vicious, hateful attacks at a grocery store in Buffalo, a synagogue in Pittsburgh, or a nightclub in Orlando.And, of course, theres a through-line between these tragedies: an epidemic of hate that touches us all. And, I believe, to combat hate we must speak truth about what fuels these attacks, and we must have the courage to take action that will save lives.I think many of us agree that our country needs sensible gun safety laws; that yesterdays Supreme Court decision, which struck down one of those laws, defies common sense and defies the Constitution. And we must protect people from the gun violence that claims countless lives every day in America, which is why the bipartisan gun safety bill that is on the way to the Presidents desk is an important and necessary step.But we cannot stop. We cannot stop here, and we must continue to do more. Because, I mean, lets be lets be real: No 9-year-old should be scared to go to school. No 15-year-old should fear shopping for school supplies. No 25-year-old should be scared to go with friends to a nightclub. And no 86-year-old should be afraid to shop for groceries. And no 18-year-old should be able to buy a weapon of war. (Applause.)So, Ill end with this point: If there is one belief that I know everyone in this room shares it is our belief in the potential, in the promise, and the strength of our nation.We all choose to serve because we know our country is strong enough to overcome the challenges we face, because we believe it is our duty as public officials to work together in pursuit of progress.So let us always remember and let us remind others that we all have so much more in common than what separates us. And let us renew then our commitment to fight for unity, especially in these days.Let us continue and NALEO has done this so well over so many years to understand the power and the beauty of building and reinforcing coalitions based on knowing how much we all have in common. Because I believe that the only way to tackle the biggest problems, the biggest challenges that we as a nation face is to tackle them together.And NALEO, of course, knows this more than most because, again, you have been bringing folks together for nearly 50 years. And in those 50 years, you have used your collective voice to advocate for more equity, more opportunity, and more possibility for all communities.So with that, I am here to say the President and I are with you. We stand with you every step of the way. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America. Thank you. (Applause.)END

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Remarks by Vice President Harris at the NALEO 39th Annual Conference - The White House

Ignore at your own peril

Houston, we have a problem.

According to voter registration data analyzed by the Associated Press, more than 1 million voters across 43 states, many of them suburban swing voters, have switched their registration to Republican in the past 12 months.

The previously unreported number reflects a phenomenon that is playing out in virtually every region of the country Democratic and Republican states along with cities and small towns in the period since President Joe Biden replaced former President Donald Trump.

But nowhere is the shift more pronounced and dangerous for Democrats than in the suburbs, where well-educated swing voters who turned against Trumps Republican Party in recent years appear to be swinging back.

The AP examined a sample of 1.7 million voters who switched party affiliation in the run up to the 2020 election, and saw that nearly 2/3rds have changed their party affiliation to GOP just 12 months later, vs 630,000 who switched to Democrat during that same period. Seeing that many more voters switching registration to Republican is a red flag that must not be ignored.

While we dont yet know what impact, if any, the Supreme Courts recent rulings may have on this trend, Democrats have to address this.

Roughly four months before Election Day, Democrats have no clear strategy to address Bidens weak popularity and voters overwhelming fear that the country is headed in the wrong direction with their party in charge. And while Republicans have offered few policy solutions of their own, the GOP has been working effectively to capitalize on the Democrats shortcomings. [emphasis mine]

The biggest shortcoming I see is Democrats leadership is gutless. They simply dont know how to fight an opponent who dwells in the gutter and is more than willing to shatter every norm and sacrifice all in the name of retaining power. I appreciate Senate leadership feels hamstrung by Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, and no Republican senator will vote for anything that benefits Democrats. Under Mitch McConnells leadership, theyre all about obstruction and getting nothing done.

But that shouldnt stop Democrats from showing the American public what Democrats stand for, and as importantly, WHAT DEMOCRATS ARE WILLING TO FIGHT FOR!!! Bring every piece of legislation that is popular with the electorate from gun control and codifying a right to safe, legal abortion, to immigration reform and voting rights, to the Senate floor for a vote. MAKE EACH SENATOR DEMOCRAT AND REPUBLICAN ALIKE, GO ON RECORD WHERE THEY STAND. Even if the votes fall short of cloture, at least we can than use these votes for messaging, to show people Democrats are fighting for the things that matter to them most. Or better yet, at this point, nuke the filibuster. Even if Manchin and Sinema torpedo that effort, the public will see Dems trying to do something. Right now, were not seeing a lot. Just look at the less-than-pathetic response by Democrats to the Supreme Courts overturning Roe. Given a two month heads up to prepare, and the best you can do are some tepid statements of condemnation and a sing-along on the steps of the Capitol?

Democratic leadership apparently doesnt see it, but the literal fight for America has begun. If these voter registration trends are an indication, we/Democrats/Progressives are losing that fight. Time is running out. We and the officials weve elected have to up our collective game now and start aggressively fighting with legislation and votes that give people a reason to believe our policies will improve their lives and that Democrats have the stones and fight to make it happen.

(just listen to the first 1:30. If this doesnt get your blood boiling and ready for battle, nothing will!)

Go here to read the rest:
HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM: More than 1 million voters switch to GOP - Daily Kos

GOP is all but asking their supporters to show up with guns and "take back" their country from the radical left. Thom Hartmann breaks down the GOP platform and GOP ads that have their supporters ready to cause harm.

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Does The GOP Really Want Violence in the Streets? - Free Speech TV

President Joe Biden capped off a rocky Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles last week with a major declaration on migration also signed by 18 Latin American countries and Canada, with hundreds of millions of dollars set to be disbursed to help integrate migrants into countries other than the United States. But the deals dearth of initiatives addressing northward migration is unlikely to burnish Bidens credibility on the topic ahead of Novembers midterms and the 2024 presidential election, instead kicking the can down the road when it comes to dealing with the countries of origin of many U.S.-bound migrants.

The administration appears stuck in a bind, experts say, as maintaining the status quo on regional migration means Democratic candidates may get hammered for not reducing border crossings, but most solutions also constitute politically unpalatable choices.

Biden went into the summit with a spate of unresolved problems but little political capital to spend: Voters have been consistently unimpressed with his handling of immigration since he came to office, and the White House has struggled to find a balance of policies that fulfill legal and humanitarian obligations to migrants a key desire of progressives without inviting backlash from the broader electorate.

The summit did not end without results: As part of the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration, the United States committed to taking 20,000 refugees from across Latin America over the next two fiscal years, as well as expanding temporary work visa programs. But the declaration was notably most expansive on the provision of pathways to legal status for migrants in Mexico, Canada, Spain, Guatemala and Belize rather than the United States, where arrivals on the southern border in March and April were at a 22-year high of more than 200,000 people a month.

That was hardly a surprise, according to Brian Winter, the vice president for policy at Americas Society/Council of the Americas and editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly.

At the end of the day, a declaration coming from a hotel conference center in Los Angeles isnt going to do much to address migration itself, Winter said, explaining that the reforms needed to fix the U.S. immigration system long ago fell victim to Washington deadlock.

This is a United States that cant even do the easy stuff anymore, he said. Its not a mystery what commonsense immigration reform would look like and we have pluralities of Americans who support things like a pathway to citizenship for the people who are already here. But we also have pluralities who support background checks for guns and we cant get that done either.

As if to underscore how solvable migration can be if the political will exists, the Los Angeles Declaration did include status regularization and hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to resettle millions of migrants just not the ones who tend to end up in the United States.

Colombia, for instance, agreed to regularize the status of 1.5 million Venezuelan refugees. Ecuador also committed to issue a similar decree and Costa Rica renewed temporary protected status for Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and Cubans, with the U.S. government agreeing to spend $314 million to help integrate Venezuelans in 17 countries.

We would not have said this five years ago, but suddenly most countries in the hemisphere have large numbers of immigrants thanks to Venezuelas collapse, noted Andrew Selee, president of the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute. And so for the first time, you have a bunch of countries eager to talk about migration and to create some sort of order out of the large movements of people who are passing through without much control.

The United States itself, though, has found less room for similar maneuvers, with the prospect of regularizing millions of undocumented migrants and welcoming millions more asylum seekers into the country a political nonstarter for Biden.In fact, even the presidents most modest efforts to reform migration have proven fraught.

Morning Consult surveys show that Bidens two least popular policy moves have been raising the cap on the number of refugees admitted annually and the attempt to revoke Title 42, a pandemic-era measure that uses public health law to expel asylum seekers who would otherwise remain in the United States while their cases are adjudicated.

Both measures would only benefit legal migrants, but Alexandra Filindra, an associate professor of political science at the University of Illinois-Chicago, said any perception that a policy would lead to increased refugee arrivals from Latin America would be exploited in U.S. elections.

White Americans are reluctant to accept the entry and especially the relocation close to them of nonwhite refugees and non-Christian refugees, especially when it involves some sort of material burden, Filindra said. For a long time in political science, we have known that negative outgroup attitudes, whether they relate to African Americans or Latinos or Muslims, are big predictors of opposition to inclusive immigration programs. And conversely, nativism and xenophobia are big predictors of white American support for restrictive immigration policies.

Thats why, critics say, the Biden administration has continued the Trump-era strategy of pushing border enforcement further south, such as by asking Mexico and Guatemala to stop migrants hundreds of miles from U.S. territory and process or deport them, instead of prioritizing reform at home.

The strategy from day one has been, See what we can get Latin American countries to take off our hands, without giving them much to make it effective, said David Bier, associate director of immigration studies at the Washington-based Cato Institute. Its not like it was under the Trump administration, where relations were totally adversarial, but the strategy has been the same the entire time, just using these countries as an extension of the U.S. Border Patrol.

The early interdiction strategy that Bier mentioned does little to address the root causes of or to reduce northward migration, as the record numbers of southern border arrivals this year shows, and the factors pushing Latin Americans from their homes remain many.

Climate change has devastated farmers in Central America, decimating the harvest of key crops in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador the so-called Northern Triangle, from which more than 2 million people have fled since 2014. To make matters worse, beginning in 2006, more effective drug enforcement in Mexico began moving cartel traffic into the Northern Triangle. Flush with funds from the lucrative U.S. drug market, organized crime took control over urban areas, preying upon government institutions weakened by an array of internal and external wars from the 1960s to 1990s. The gangs physically and sexually victimize civilians as young as their early teens, and sometimes harsh retributions catch innocent people in the dragnet, like El Salvadors mass detainment of suspected criminal associates.

During last weeks summit, Vice President Kamala Harris announced nearly $3.2 billion in private investment in Central America in hopes of stabilizing the regions economy, but experts doubt it will do much. The fact that the funds wont be coming from taxpayer pockets makes them more palatable to the Biden administration, but also means there are no guarantees about when, where or how the money will be invested or if it will help.

The academic literature is quite clear that increasing GDP growth does not reduce out migration. It can increase out migration, because now all of a sudden more people have the means to migrate and youre going to make anywhere from three to 10 times as much by moving to the United States, Bier said. The Biden administration knows its not going to work, but highlighting the poverty is a way of saying, Its not our fault that people want to come.

The Biden administration has long arguedthat while the immigration system is in need of reform,those changes will take time. A White House spokesperson said that more U.S. investment throughout the region would in the meantime help strike at the root of the problem based on the logic that if people have jobs and economic opportunity at home, they will be less inclined to leave their home and migrate to the United States.

But in many Central American capitals, a more cynical spirit prevails.

Karla Valenzuela, a professor of international studies at Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City noted that after Mexican President Andres Manuel Lpez Obrador announced he would boycott the Summit of the Americas due to the forced exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, his counterparts in the Northern Triangle countries quickly echoed him.

Migration is a topic that is seen as sacrificed already by Central American governments, said Valenzuela. We who study migration know that the measures Harris announced are not effective; what would be effective is removing Title 42 and revoking the Remain in Mexico policy to allow orderly and legal migration.

Valenzuela added that it often seemed as if the problem was unresolvable.

I dont think there is a political solution, she said, all the governments know what must be done, but the issue is seen as lost in the end.

The Biden administration finds itself with few good prospects.

The measures that would begin to stabilize the home countries of migrants coming to the United States and reduce inflows over the long term would include allowing many more migrants into the United States immediately nonstarters for an electorate already souring on the president.

But Bidens efforts so far are not likely to have much of an effect on border arrivals, meaning the Republican campaign for the upcoming November elections and in 2024 will have no shortage of images of migrant caravans.

In the end, that may lead to a situation where a failure by Biden to meaningfully address the problem helps elect a U.S. president even less interested in working with Latin American governments on resolving the deep roots of such problems, said Patricia Martuscelli, a lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom.

You need to negotiate and coordinate efforts with other countries in the region: We need to talk about development, we need to talk about how to deal with economic crises, how to deal with the violence, with the organized crime in the region, Martuscelli said. The risk of having a second Trump presidency is really bad for Latin America, because Trump is not a negotiator.

Read more:
Immigration Is a Political Liability for Biden. But So Is Immigration Reform - Morning Consult

Here, we have more immigrants than any other country in the world, with more than 40 million people born in another country living in the U.S.

Immigration is one of the fundamental building blocks that make the U.S. the nation it is today.

Here, we have more immigrants than any other country in the world, with more than 40 million people born in another country living in the U.S.

But the debate over immigration policy has been contentious.

We have to do it in a way that secures our border, has a path to citizenship, respects the value family to us that has certain principles that we would agree to," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Senate Democrats have taken every meaningful opportunity to back the administrations border policies and vote down Republicans efforts to improve security," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. "Their votes have helped create this mess.

Xiao Wang with the immigration company Boundless tells us any type of compromise is tough to come by in the hyper-political landscape of today.

You need 60 votes in the Senate to pass any law that affects green cards, or the way citizenship is handled, and the only topic you can get 60 senate votes on, is daylight saving time," Wang said.

History proves reaching agreement in Washington over immigration has not come often.

The first immigration law that passed was the Naturalization Act of 1790.

That limited U.S. citizenship to any 'free White person.it excluded almost anyone who wasnt from Europe, like Native Americans and enslaved Africans.

And exclusivity for white immigrants became even more apparent with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act' which targeted Chinese immigrants legal entry to the U.S.

It wasnt until 1965 that the U.S. saw major immigration reform with its Immigration and Nationality Act signed into law by president Lyndon Johnson which set the main principles for immigration rules still enforced today.

Under that law, priority was given to skilled laborers, and immigrants who had spouses, parents, siblings, or other family members already in the U.S.

Its what former president Trump has referred to as chain migration.

As a result, the U.S. started to see less European immigrants and more migrants from Africa, Asia, and Latin America entered.

In the three decades following the 1965 law, more than 18 million legal immigrants settled in the U.S.

Throughout the 1980s, illegal immigration was booming as many migrants entered the U.S. through the Canadian and Mexican borders.

Many wanting to escape poverty, war, and seek better economic opportunities.

Thats where the long lines of immigrants started to form.

And that put immigration at the forefront of politics.

The Immigration Reform Act in 1986, signed by President Ronald Reagan, attempted to address the issue by allowing millions of unauthorized immigrants to apply for legal status, and penalized employers who knowingly hired undocumented immigrants.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, the law granted legal status to 2.7 million people.

In the early '90s competition for jobs between low-income Americans and migrants picked up, as the country faced a recession.

Congress then passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act in 1996, signed into law by President Bill Clinton, which aimed to enforce the countrys borders and the use of social programs by immigrants.

It also established the expedited removal process and allowed customs and border protection to deport undocumented noncitizens.

Instead, the numbers kept rising.

Pew Research Center estimates the unauthorized immigrant population living in the U.S. rose from the '90s into the 21st century, before hitting a peak of 12 million in 2007.

Despite a few modifications, the immigration policies from the '50s and '60s are the same ones governing our system today.

For immigrants, there are two basic paths to citizenship in the U.S.: through birth or naturalization. But naturalization can be an extremely long and complex process.

Pew Research Center data shows more than 77 percent of immigrants in the U.S. are lawfully living here. Others try to get in illegally.

Officers arrested about 143,000 undocumented immigrants in 2019, and removed more than 267,000 from the U.S.

And more migrants are arriving daily.

The last two years have created record numbers of Customs and Border Protection enforcement actions.

In April alone, border officials encountered over 234,000 migrants, topping a 22-year high set in March.

Today, the issue remains.

Immigration has become a partisan wedge issue within congress and the country, raising other legal, humanitarian, economic, and political issues.

And it continues to be a focal point among politicians running for office.

Despite congressional deadlock on immigration, recent administrations have found loopholes through executive action.

Back in 2012, to address the approximately 800,000 children born elsewhere but brought to the U.S. as children, President Barack Obama allowed these so-called dreamers to apply for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA.

But for DACA recipients, the problem is the program currently offers no pathway to citizenship.

President Donald Trumps executive actions took on a different approach.

According to CBP, the Trump administration completed 450 miles of barrier, though not all was built from scratch.

The 45th president also implemented a travel ban on several majority-Muslim countries a move he said would protect Americans from terrorist attacks.

And he moved to end the DACA program.

President Joe Biden pledged to overturn those actions.

Many of those campaign promises have either been blocked in court or abandoned altogether. As a result, two signature Trump administration asylum policies remain partly in place.

One is the Remain in Mexico program for people seeking asylum in the U.S.

Anotehr is Title 42, a pandemic health order that allows border agents to swiftly expel migrants without screening their asylum claims.

Its been used to expel more than 1.7 million migrants since March of 2020.

The Biden administrations push to lift the health protocol has so far failed with a federal judge siding with two dozen Republican state attorneys general in a lawsuit to block the end of Title 42.

While Washington continues to debate the issue of immigration reform, millions are kept waiting.

And patience is wearing thin as border cities like El Paso, Texas declare a state of emergency to help alleviate with the thousands of migrants trickling in.

And they will likely continue waiting, as immigration experts dont think an agreement on major immigration reform will come any time soon.

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Why Cant Congress Agree On Immigration? - Newsy